FRIDERIK KLAMPFER
(University of Maribor)
DO WE HAVE ANY SPECIAL DUTIES TO COMPATRIOTS (CO-NATIONALS)?
By patriotic/nationalist standpoint I shall mean a deep concern for the existence and
flourishing of one's own country or nation, conjoined with the belief that one may or even
should give priority, in the promotion of others' well-being, or in satisfaction of others' needs
and interests, or in protection of others' rights (or whatever the principal moral goal may be)
to the well-being, needs, interests, rights, of one's fellow citizens or co-nationals over that of
others. Such an attitude is undeniably and persistingly attractive to the masses all over the
world. Despite this there seem to be at least a prima facie moral case against it. One may be
suspect towards patriotic/nationalist evaluative or normative stance for many different
reasons: because of the suffering it has caused over the centuries of nationalist warfare;
because it attaches fundamental value to collectives and only derivative value to individuals;
because it asks one to cherish and admire and love what in reality is of only little or no value
at all; because it rests on the predominantly false beliefs both about the nature and the value of
political or national (ethnic, cultural) community, and so on.
In the paper I will assume that the most troubling feature of patriotism/nationalism is its
inadequacy to accommodate the basic requirement of moral egalitarianism or impartialism.1
According to moral egalitarianism, all persons are morally equal in the sense that whatever
moral rights they might have, or whatever treatment or good they might be entitled to, they all
have the same rights, or are entitled to the same treatment or (amount of) good. Moral
impartialism, on the other hand, claims that one should give, in moral reasoning and action,
equal consideration to the interests (good, well-being, happiness, rights, dignity) of everyone2
1
The requirement of impartialism that I have in mind corresponds to what McMahan, following Hill,
calls "substantive" as opposed to "formal" impartiality. Or, to borrow the illuminating formulation of
M. Friedman, it is not impartiality as a privileged standpoint for critical (unbiased) moral thinking, but
rather impartiality as a specific moral duty (for example, of those who fill the public role of dispensing
goods among competing applicants to favor certain others - their compatriots or co-nationals - in care,
assistance, attentiveness, and loyalty). As many authors did not fail to notice, impartiality in the latter
sense may well be permitted or even called for by impartiality in the former sense (i.e. on unbiased
critical moral reflection). For more details on the distinction see McMahan (1997); 116-7, and
Friedman (1989); 646.
2
That is, in the case of long-term effects of our actions, even of those presently non-existent, as rightly
pointed out by Gutmann (1996); 69: »Our primary allegiance is to no community, whether it be of
2
affected by his/her action.3 Though the idea of moral egalitarianism is difficult to spell out4
and might be even more difficult to defend,5 it is still, in this or some other similar form,
central to our understanding of morality and as such not easily dispensable. And since it is not
disputed by many of those who defend patriotism/nationalism as a form of partiality, I'll
simply take it for granted that there is a prima facie moral obligation to treat all humans alike,
and that, considering this fact the burden of proof must lay on defenders of
patriotic/nationalist partiality. In what follows I will critically assess some of the proposals for
grounding not just the permissibility, but also the obligatoriness of patriotic/nationalist
partiality in the alleged (intrinsic) valuableness or goodness of the appropriate relations of
citizenship and/or co-nationality. I will argue that this line of argumentation is doomed to
failure, since it cannot meet two modest, intuitively appealing requirements that every account
of special duties to compatriots/co-nationals in terms of the intrinsic value of
citizenship/nationality should be able to meet.
Let me start by introducing some useful distinctions. Let's call a patriotic/national partialist
holding a belief that all people may or should be partial to their own country/nation and
compatriots/co-nationals, a universalist national partialist (UNP), and the one claiming that
only members of the country C/nation N may or should be partial to their own country/nation
and their countrymen/co-nationals, a particularist national partialist (PNP). In the paper I will
consider only the universalist NP and use the expression "national partialist" to refer only to
human beings in our world today or our society today. Our primary moral allegiance is to justice -to
doing what is right. Doing what is right cannot be reduced to loyalty to, or identification with, any
existing group of human beings. Morality extends even beyond the current generation, for example,
requiring that we consider the well-being of future generations.«
3
We might call the first the principle of moral equality and the second the principle of equal
consideration. Now I am certainly not claiming that the two are equivalent or that the former entails
(except in some accommodated form which, however, begs the question against patriotic/national
partialism) the latter. Many different considerations might block this inference: one could, for
example, argue that only those (physically) close to the agent can be affected by his/her actions; or that
rights only generate negative universal duties, whereas positive duties, on the other hand, are
generated by the duty of benevolence and as such, since there can be no unlimited benevolence, are
necessarily limited in scope; or that one does not fail to show due respect to the dignity of another
person by giving priority to someone else's interests over his/her; or that our duty to assistance is an
imperfect duty allowing us to choose how and against whom we will discharge it. But since I am not
claiming that any form of partiality is a priori irreconcilable with a moral point of view, but only that,
given the intuitive appeal of the principle of moral equality, there must always be good moral reasons
for a departure from impartiality, acknowledging some pull towards the principle of equal
consideration might just be enough for my purposes.
4
See Williams (1973) for a formulation of the two horns of dilemma that a moral egalitarian cannot
escape.
5
See Pojman (1992) for a penetrating criticism of it.
3
the proponent of that form of NP. Now NP can either claim that one may (occasionally) be
partial to his/her fellow citizens or co-nationals or that one should (always) be partial to
them.6 Call the first version the permissive NP and the second the demanding NP. Although
the main target of my criticism throughout the paper will be the demanding NP, some
conclusions drawn will apply to the permissive version of NP as well.7 Finally, let's say of a
duty that it is universal if it is equally (to the same extent) owed to everyone, and that it is
special if it is owed (to the same extent) only to some (an individual or a group of) people, but
not to all.
Reasons for partiality to fellow citizens/co-nationals, just as for any other form of partiality
(to one's own children, parents, friends, life partner), may be of either non-moral or moral
kind. I will consider only moral reasons for partiality, thereby leaving out the possibility that
there might be non-moral reasons for partiality which (occasionally, at least) can override
moral reasons for impartiality.8 Moral justification for partiality can take different forms. A
duty to patriotic/national partiality can be, for example, derived from some more general
moral principle. Moral reasons generated by such principles can be of both consequentialist
and deontological kind. If, for example, patriotic/nationalist partiality (or a general disposition
for it) could be shown to have consequences that are good (or, in a maximalist form of
consequentialism, better than the consequences of not having and displaying such a
disposition) from an impartial point of view, then everyone would have not just a good moral
reason, but also (at least a prima facie) obligation of the consequentialist kind for favoring
his/her own compatriots or co-nationals over others. The same universalist form of demanding
6
Or in terms of a selective concern for the well-being of others: "You may show greater concern for
the well-being of your countrymen/co-nationals." and "You have a duty towards your countrymen/conationals to show greater concern (to care more) for their well-being than for that of others."
7
One can find, in the literature on patriotism, several different statements of what is (more or less) the
same moral problem: (i) is patriotism a virtue or a vice? (MacIntyre); (ii) can patriotism (as a form of
favorism or partialism) ever be morally justified? (Wolf, Gomberg); (iii) can there be a form of
patriotism that is both allowed by universal morality and required by special moralities? (Nathanson);
(iv) is patriotic (partialist) attitude (in moral thinking, feeling, deciding and acting) morally preferable
to the cosmopolitan or is the opposite true? (Nussbaum); (v) can relations of co-nationality and
citizenship justify departures from impartiality, and if yes, how extensive can these be? (McMahan);
(vi) can there be a special duty (obligation, responsibility) to give priority to the needs and interests of
compatriots and co-nationals? (Mason, Hurka). Thus the question can be formulated either in terms of
what is virtuous, or in terms of what is obligatory to some, but not to others, or in terms of what is
morally good or preferable, or in terms of what is morally permissible. I for myself have stated the
moral problem of patriotism/nationalism using the forms (vi) and (v) respectively, since they, to my
opinion, most accurately represent the genuine nationalist/patriotic standpoint.
8
This non-standard view is defended by S. Wolf in Wolf (1992).
4
NP could be supported by moral reasons of deontological kind as well. If membership in a
country or nation were beneficial to every single member (if it provided him/her with goods,
such as legal protection against invasion, various political and welfare rights, cultural and
artistic achievements, a sense of belonging, security, strength and stability, a mode of selftranscendence and a focus for collective identification strongly motivating beneficial cooperation and commendatory self-sacrifice, and so on), then the principles of gratitude and
fairness would apply which, besides recommending him/her to feel grateful for bestowed
goods, would also dictate him/her to benefit others in return and to take upon him-/herself the
due share of burdens in a mutually advantageous cooperation.9
Now, whether there really are any such general consequentialist and deontological reasons for
partiality is obviously a matter of empirical inquiry and cannot be decided without careful
examination of the (comparative) effects on the individuals' well-being of people living
together in certain kinds of political communities and interacting in certain ways rather than
in others. Since, however, I basically agree with those critics who do not find this line of
argumentation convincing, I will not further explore it. It might, however, help to determine
what exactly is wrong with it. What most critics object to is that one owes, according to
justifications for partiality in general terms, a duty of partiality (or selective concern) to
his/her countrymen or co-nationals not in virtue of their being his/her countrymen or conationals (i.e. in virtue of standing in certain relation - of citizenship or nationality - to them),
but in virtue of their being his/her benefactors (or him/her being their beneficiary).10 It is only
thanks to the contingent fact that one's benefactors are at the same time one's countrymen or
co-nationals whom one owes special duties to. Such a justificatory account of special duties to
compatriots or co-nationals fails to capture what seems to be the central tenet of patriotism
and nationalism, namely that one owes special duties to his/her compatriots or co-nationals
9
A general consequentialist (instrumental) justification for partiality is given by Goodin and criticised
as basically unsatisfying by Gomberg (1990), Mason (1997) and McMahan (1997). A deontological
justification for partiality along these lines is given by Gewirth, Dagger and McMahan (1997) as well
as (probably) Hurka (1997). In contrast to both, Miller (1992) offers a moral justification for NP that
appeals to the moral ideal of a community of people determining its own future which nationality and
citizenship are supposed to be the necessary conditions for. A. Gutmann (1996; 71) proposes a
justification for PP that comprises, in an interesting way, of both deontological and consequentialist
elements: »Our obligations as democratic citizens go beyond our duties as politically unorganized
individuals, because our capacity to act effectively to further justice increases when we are empowered
as citizens, and so therefore does our responsibility to act to further justice. Democratic citizens have
institutional means at their disposal that solitary individuals, or citizens of the world only, do not.«
10
Or, in the case of consequentialist justification, in virtue of his/her partial concern being producive of
5
(country or nation) simply in virtue of being related in a certain way (as a compatriot or conational) to them, simply in virtue of his/her membership in a country or nation. In other
words, that being related that way to them makes them somehow special for him/her, distinct
from others not standing in the same relation of citizenship or co-nationality to him/her.11
In the rest of the paper I will therefore concentrate on another, at first look more promising
justificatory account of special duties to fellow citizens and co-nationals which is supposed to
capture this central tenet of patriotic or nationalist standpoint. The account that I have in mind
tries to avoid the above objection by locating the source of special duties to compatriots and
co-nationals either in the nature of the relation of citizenship/co-nationality or in its intrinsic
value.12 For the lack of space and time I will restrain myself to dealing only with the second
strategy, the so-called Intrinsic Value Argument.13 According to this argument, one has
(more) good (than his/her impartial attitude).
11
Insofar as one's countrymen or co-nationals enjoy their special moral status (as beneficiaries of one's
duties) only in virtue of being his/her benefactors, they must be indistinguishable, from a moral point
of view, from other benefactors who are not one's fellow citizens or co-nationals; but since the former
are morally indistinguishable from the latter, they must, accordingly, also be treated alike. One should,
perhaps in passing, mention that the consequentialist version of a justification of partiality in general
terms has, apart from the one mentioned above, its own peculiar difficulties. The most troubling
among them is that instrumentally valuable partialist attitudes and behaviors (i.e. those producive of
(more) good), while they can give rise to certain duties, can neither give rise to duties to one's
compatriots and co-nationals rather than with respect to them (or with respect to the valuable
relationship of membership itself), nor generate special duties to one's own compatriots and conationals rather than to other people's (since all the consequentialist principle requires is the promotion
of that good which one can best promote and one might not always be in a position to realize the good
of his/her citizenship or co-nationality better than that of others').
12
Scheffler in Scheffler (1997) draws a distinction between "interactional" and "relational" accounts of
special duties; according to the former, only certain forms of interaction between people can give rise
to special duties to others, whereas according to the latter, certain kinds of relations are capable of
generating special duties as well. We might, on the track of this classification, call the above "a
relational justificatory account of special duties to compatriots and co-nationals".
13
I borrow the label from Lichtenberg (1997); 158. A belief that one's country or nation or his/her
membership therein is intrinsically valuable, is a necessary component of a nationalist/patriotic
standpoint. It isn't just partiality to one's compatriots or co-nationals that matters; the reason why one
(thinks one) should give priority to them over others is an equally important element. One need not
believe that his/her own national culture is superior to that of other nations in order to be a nationalist.
A belief that his/her national culture (traditions, customs, institutions that are nation-specific) is of
some value or significance will do. But then one must also believe that it is in virtue of his/her
membership in a nation (in virtue of his/her standing in the relation of nationality, of his/her belonging
to a certain group of people) that one acquires special duties with respect to this good (to sustain and
preserve it, to contribute to its flourishing,..) or towards other members in a nation. We wouldn't
classify as nationalist a person whose concern for the institutions and traditions of his/her own nation
is motivated by the belief in a universal duty to preserve equally valuable traditions of all nationalities,
and the belief that this duty is best served if members of each nationality give priority, in caring, to
their own traditions (that some sort of the division of moral labour is necessary). For a
patriot/nationalist such a grounding of the commitment to one's own country/nation would be too
6
special duties to compatriots/co-nationals in virtue of standing in the intrinsically valuable
relation of citizenship/nationality to them. I'll try to dispute this claim, first, by pointing out
some fatal deficiencies in the accounts proposed so far, and second, by providing some
reasons why we should completely give up this line of thought. I will conclude by briefly
indicating how and why my conclusion need not affect justificatory accounts of some other
forms of partiality (like those to one's own friends, children, parents or beloved) in terms of
their intrinsic value.
I will start by assuming (uncontroversially, so far as I can see) that any plausible justification
of NP by appeal to the intrinsic value of citizenship/nationality must meet the following two
modest requirements: a "ground-for-value" requirement and an "all-and-only" requirement.
The ground-for-value requirement concerns the plausibility of the claim that the given relation
(that of a membership in a country or nation) is intrinsically valuable. It asks the defender of
NP to answer the question: "What is it about citizenship/nationality that makes it valuable in
itself (rather than just instrumentally)?" The all-and-only requirement, on the other hand,
serves as a standard of assessment of the kind of support that the claim about the intrinsic
valuableness of citizenship/nationality is supposed to lend to the demanding NP. In order to
meet this requirement a defender of NP must provide a plausible answer to the question:
"Assuming that citizenship/nationality is indeed intrinsically valuable, how is it supposed to
follow from this that one has special duties to all and only his/her compatriots/co-nationals?".
Thus, a defender of the demanding NP owes us an account of what makes citizenship or
nationality valuable in itself which, at the same time, is capable of grounding special duties of
partiality to all and only one's compatriots/co-nationals rather than just permissions thereof, or
duties with respect to something, or duties to a group of people that only partly coincides with
the class of all and only one's citizens/nationals. Can these modest expectations be met? I
don't believe they can. I will contend that as far as the relation of nationality is concerned
even the first requirement proves to be too high an obstacle; as for the relation of citizenship,
it can only meet one of the requirements at the cost of failing to meet the other. Let me
contingent, since the obligatoriness of the latter would depend upon its efficacy in discharging the
universal duty to preserve equally valuable national traditions - were it the case that some of them
cannot be preserved by their own peoples, then one would be equally duty bound to uphold these
(even more so if his/her contribution to the preservation and flourishing of his/her own national culture
were dispensable, as it is often true of the members of large nations). More on this point Gomberg
(1990).
7
explain.
In order to meet the "ground-for-value" requirement, the proponent of the Intrinsic Value
Argument for NP must show the value of the relation of citizenship/nationality to somehow
reside in the very nature (intrinsic properties) of citizenship/nationality. Thus one cannot
avoid giving an account of what (kind of relation) citizenship or nationality is, or what it
consists in. Both citizenship and nationality are kinds of membership, but membership in
what? Take citizenship.14 Being a citizen of the state S, first of all, means enjoying certain
legal status - being subject to the law of the state S. Such a status is typically determined by a
catalogue of legal (protective, political, and welfare) rights one enjoys as a citizen of this
state, as well as by a catalogue of legal obligations one must regularly or occasionally
discharge. Thus, according to the minimalist definition of citizenship, being a citizen is
identical to enjoying certain legal status, determined by a catalogue of legally enforceable
rights and obligations. Now it is quite easy to see how citizenship can be instrumentally
14
I will, not only for the lack of time and space, completely leave out the issue of the relation of
nationality and its intrinsic value. I believe that, in contrast to citizenship, the justification of special
duties of partiality to co-nationals by appeal to the intrinsic value of nationality cannot even go off the
ground, and this for the following reason. Nationality is, simple enough, membership in a nation.
According to the minimalist definition, offered by Hobsbawm and embraced by many others,
including Miller, Nathanson and Lichtenberg, a nation is any sufficiently large body of people whose
members regard themselves as belonging, by virtue of possessing certain objective characteristics
(other than the belief about belonging itself), to a 'nation'. Membership in a nation (nationality) is thus
essentially a matter of sharing certain beliefs (about common ancestry, history, culture, language,
origin, character traits, as well as their respective value) and feelings (of love and concern for, and
loyalty to the nation, of attachement to a territory, and so on) with enough others. The fact that what is
alone constitutive of a nation is some subjective (certain beliefs about themselves and others) rather
than objective feature of its members (same language, same ancestors or same commonly admired
character traits - since none of these seems to be necessary for membership in a nation), makes it
extremely difficult to build a plausible defence of NP upon the assumption that the relationship in
question is intrinsically significant. First, it is highly implausible to claim any intrinsic value for
membership constituted by shared (factual and evaluative) beliefs and feelings of its members alone for if rather than being good in itself, these beliefs and feelings are only good insofar as they are true
or appropriate, nationality cannot possibly be intrinsically valuable ("being true or appropriate"
cannot, according to a classical idea, be an intrinsic property of beliefs and feelings, since the belief's
being true or the feeling's being appropriate is not independent of the existence of any other thing).
Secondly, even if those beliefs themselves were true (what most of them are not), this could probably
not amount to a value great enough to justify partiality - even more so after taking into consideration
the intuitive appeal of the voluntarist and distributive objection (for the formulations of those see
Scheffler (1997)). Knowledge might be more appropriate for this role, yet nationalists, even when
their beliefs are true, are seldom justified in holding them. And even if loving what is in itself good is
(intrinsically?) good itself, what nationalists typically love is something else than just a group of
people sharing (or having shared) certain beliefs and feelings. Thirdly, even if there were any intrinsic
value to this membership, it could at best provide grounds for reciprocal duties between people sharing
those beliefs and feelings, rather than to everyone whom the nationalist would typically want to
8
valuable: it provides citizens with stable and relatively foreseeable environment, secures their
basic rights and liberties, enables them to cooperate with other members in producing
significant benefits for themselves, provides, in the form of a stable (instituionalized) political
association, the means of jointly determining their common future, and so on. But can it really
be said to be valuable in itself, apart from its contribution to the well-being of individual
citizens, as well? What intrinsic good, if any, can it be said to realize/embody/incorporate?
Authors who are sympathetic to the idea, usually point to the equality of the legal status
conferred by citizenship, both as something good in itself and in its role of providing the basis
of everyone's self-respect; or they value it for its hidden or manifest potential for individual or
collective self-determination and autonomy; or they stress the fact that patriotic identification
and concern can foster virtuous character traits (such as willingness to self-sacrifice,
altruism, benevolence, capacity for empathy, and the like) and their regular manifestations in
behavior. Some even see it as a precondition for any implementation of the basic principles of
distributive justice.15 Besides these, what I would have to consider, if my rejection is to be
more complete, are the following proposals for the source of intrinsic value of citizenship:
Aristoteles' idea of the citizenship as a form of realisation of our nature as political/social
beings (the proponent of this view would have to show that it is either the only or the most
appropriate way in which us, humans can realise that part of our nature); Taylor's (1996)
claim that patriotism (or patriotic identity) is necessary, in the modern world, for the creation
and sustenance of free and democratic societies - such societies depend solely on the
spontaneous support of their members which, in turn, requires not only a high degree of
commitment to the common project (which they believe to be of considerable value), but also
a very strong sense of allegiance, or a special sense of bonding among the people - but in
saying this (and emphasizing the importance of democratic enterprises) Taylor seem to
ascribe instrumental rather than intrinsic value to patriotic identification (commitment,
solidarity, sense of bonding, sense of allegiance, or whatever attitudes this comprises of): we
need patriotic (or some other common) identification in the modern world in order to be able
to mobilize people, or gain their support for unpopular or personally demanding redistributive
ascribe such duties to.
15
To quote Walzer (1992; 84):"..it is only as members (of a political community with the right of
choosing its admissions policy - F.K.) somewhere that men and women can hope to share in all the
other social goods - security, wealth, honour, office, and power - that communal life makes possible."
But on this account, citizenship could at best be shown to be a necessary condition for a (realisation of
a) particular intrinsic good (in this case, distributive justice) rather than a particular intrinsic good
itself.
9
policies; Walzer's (1996) claim to the effect that an understanding of what it means to have
fellow citizens and neighbors is morally fundamental (we are "morally lost" without such an
understanding), in the sense that we begin (what? our moral reasoning? does he really want to
claim that our moral reasoning is, at the very beginning, cast in terms of obligations we owe
to our fellow citizens and neighbors? since this is plainly false!) with an understanding of
what it means to have fellow citizens and neighbors and only afterwards extend the sense of
moral fellowship and neighborliness to new groups of people, and ultimately to all people.
Such an account of what goes on in our moral development is successfully countered by an
equally plausible account provided by Nussbaum (Nussbaum (1996b); 140-3).
Now, equality, respect (for oneself and others), self-determination and autonomy, virtuous
character, distributive justice are certainly among the most serious candidates for intrinsically
valuable things on any plausible account of intrinsic value. The difficulty, however, is that in
order for such things to account for the alleged intrinsic value of citizenship, they would have
to be parts of that very relation, its very constituents, not just its more or less remote effects or
pre-conditions. This much, at least, follows from the so-called "thesis of universality" (I
myself prefer the name "the universality constraint on intrinsic value"), which states that if a
state of affairs SA has some intrinsic value, then it must have it whenever it occurs - since
what this thesis implies is that the intrinsic feature of SA that forms the basis of the intrinsic
value of SA cannot be some contingent element in SA (i.e. a property that is sometimes, but
not always, instantiated in SA). Insofar as citizenship is essentially a matter of enjoying
certain legal status that can be acquired either by birth or by naturalization (an administrative
decision), each of the above elements, however, seems dispensable for it. Take, for example,
equality. Our talk of "second-class citizens", however metaphorical, suggests that we do not
conceive of equality in status as a part of the very definition of citizenship, or a necessary
condition for it. Citizenship thus isn't conceptually tied to membership in a democratic state
with a strict rule of law. But even if in reality things were, as a matter of fact, different from
the way we usually think and talk about citizenship, there are still other reasons for denying it
any intrinsic value. To mention just the most obvious one: membership in a country, as
noticed by Walzer, is primarily a kind of personal good the distribution of which is regulated
by the principles of admission and exclusion. Now one might agree with Walzer that the
distribution of citizenship is not pervasively subject to the constraints of justice,16 or not. It is
16
ibid. Walzer believes that in working out these principles for itself each community exercises its
10
nevertheless difficult to deny that the equality of the legal status that all countrymen enjoy can
only be had at the cost of denying the same legal status to all the others (i.e. at the cost of
excluding non-members) - there can simply be no (distribution of) citizenship without
exclusion. The point I want to make is not so much that exclusion as such, and with it every
possible distribution of membership, is necessarily unjust (though it is usually according to
morally arbitrary - undeserving - features: one's residency, ancestry, origin, birth place,... that
citizenship is imparted/dispensed). My scruple is rather with the question of how equality
(which, on the common assumption, is an intrinsic good) in legal status can possibly ground
the intrinsic goodness of citizenship, if such equality among some crucially depends on
rendering all others unequal to them.
Such a reason for caution stems from the very concept of intrinsic value/good. What must be
true of a state of affairs "every member in a state S enjoying equal legal status" in order to
count as intrinsically good? According to a prevalent view (see Lemos (1994); 4), for this
state of affairs to be intrinsically good it must necessarily (whenever it occurs) be such that
whoever contemplates it in isolation from the contemplation of other, wider states of affairs
(of which this state of affairs may be a part or a cause or a consequence),17 is ethically
required to love it (or form some kind of pro-attitude towards it). But is there really a sense in
which non-members could plausibly be said to be ethically required to love this state of affairs
for itself (i.e. for what it is)? They don't seem to have any moral (impartial) reason for loving
it for what it is, since for them citizenship in S means inequality (in status and, consequently,
in treatment), based on morally arbitrary (since undeserving) features, and there can hardly be
any moral reason for praising discrimination on a morally arbitrary basis.
Now, one could object to this conclusion along the following lines.18 The procedure described
above has to meet two constraints if it is to count as a test of intrinsic goodness: one
concerning the nature of the evaluator and one concerning the nature of the evaluated thing. In
order for such judgement to be impartial, the evaluator, rather than being a citizen or a noncitizen in S, i.e. a person with a determinate social identity, would have to be a kind of
Rawlsian rational individual behind the veil of ignorance. But surely an appeal to the
disapproving attitude of non-citizens in S in my rebuttal above clearly violates this constraint.
fundamental right to determine its own shape (character) and size.
17
Or whoever has an adequate idea of its non-ethical characteristics - Broad's formulation.
18
I owe thanks to Nenad Miščević for raising this objection and pressing me to answer it.
11
Secondly, in order for the judgement to be about some state of affairs' intrinsic goodness, as
opposed to its instrumental or merely contributive value, one must consider it in isolation
from any wider state of affairs of which it could be a part or a cause or a consequence. In the
present context this would mean that everyone has to reflect on the state of affairs "every
member in a state S enjoying equal legal status" in abstraction from the fact that most human
beings are not citizens in S and that some of them may not enjoy equal legal status at all (in
no other state). My argument thus seems to be violating the second constraint as well.
Consider, however, what was really going on in the reasoning that was supposed to support
the above complaints. As a consequence of abstracting from the wider context of implications
of equality being conferred to members of S alone, the only plausible reason remaining for
loving S (for what it is) must be the fact that within S everybody enjoys the same legal status.
Thus the proponent of PP, if her attempt at rejecting cosmopolitan doubts is to succeed, must
rely on the force of what is essentially a cosmopolitan and egalitarian intuition, namely that
all human beings are morally equal and should be accorded the same moral status. By doing
this, the proponent of PP does not, of course, make herself guilty of a strict contradiction or
some other logical fallacy. The fact that the force of her objection crucially depends on the
plausibility of the view against which her objection is directed in the first place, however,
certainly casts enough doubt on the proposed justification for PP in terms of the intrinsic
value of the relation of citizenship/nationality.
Similar doubts can be raised with regard to other intrinsically good things from the above list:
just as there is, in a sovereign state and its institutions, a potential for individual selfdetermination and autonomy, the stock of affections and affiliations toward one's country and
compatriots, on the other hand, is also a permanent source of affective, reactive, nonautonomous behavior; and, finally, patriotic affiliation can and indeed often does, besides its
good effects, foster certain morally appalling features of human character, such as exclusivity,
chauvinism, and hostility to outsiders. Yet, if no intrinsically valuable thing19 can be shown to
19
What about Walzer's idea that questions of distributive justice can only arise within a closed political
community and that therefore a sovereign state - a political community exercising jurisdiction over
certain territory and determining its own admissions policy - is a necessary condition for the
implementation of the principles of distributive justice? This claim is either trivially true or plainly
false. It is trivially true in that the question of what distribution of goods would be just in the
community C cannot be decided (not even asked) before the scope of the potential beneficiaries (i.e.
the shape/nature of the community C) is determined. But it is also patently false since nothing in the
12
be part of the very relation of citizenship, then neither the relation itself can be proven
intrinsically valuable.20
For those aware of this difficulty, the most natural move is to reject the "legalistic" conception
of citizenship in favour of a much richer, normative conception. Thus Miller (1992) takes a
specific behaviour on the part of a citizen to be an integral part of the very definition of
citizenship - in order to be a citizen one must be politically active, both in the sense of
informing him-/herself about the issues currently under discussion and in the sense of
participating in decision-making itself (as a member of a collectivity who is committed to
advancing its common good rather than a private person pursuing his/her private interests).
What citizenship consists in is, according to this picture, some valuable joint activity
(gathering informations and participating in collective decision-making) rather than the
possession of some valuable (objective) character trait. Mason (1997) introduces a notion of
citizenship that is similarly normative. He defines it as membership in a collective body that
confers equal status (equal political and legal rights) to all of its members and is partially
constituted by certain obligations of the members to each other (above all an obligation to
give priority to the interests of their compatriots over those of others and to participate fully in
public life). And Hurka, though he does not embrace the intrinsic-value-strategy of
justification for special duties, nevertheless tries to derive them from the universal duty to
honour those of the past intrinsically valuable interactions (such as doings of good and
sufferings of evil) involving oneself which, to a large extent, make up the life of a nation
(where by "nation" he means a political rather than ethnic or cultural or linguistic
community).
concept of distributive justice itself compels us to restrain the scope of potential beneficiaries to the
members of sovereign states alone. Were it not so, questions about whether the existent world
economic order is just or not would make little or no sense at all - all one could sensibly investigate
would be the question whether the distribution of goods within this or that state is just to its members.
This is certainly a very revisionary account of distributive justice, one calling for much more support
than Walzer provides.
20
Such a conclusion is warranted by Moore's classical definition of intrinsic value:"To say that a kind
of value is 'intrinsic' means merely that the question whether a thing possesses it, and in what degree it
possesses it, depends solely on the intrinsic nature of the thing in question", that is, on some intrinsic
property of it (Moore (1993); 286) - which is equivalent to saying that intrinsic values supervene upon
intrinsic natures. A property is intrinsic, however, just in case a thing's having it (at a time) depends
only on what that thing is like (at that time), and not on what any wholly distinct contingent object (or
wholly distinct time) is like. (Vallentyne (1997); 209)
13
Now this move from mere "relatedness and identity"21 to "activity and interaction",22 from
passive citizenship that simply happens to one and then stays attached to him/her, to active
citizenship that must be earned and actively sustained, certainly promises a better solution to
the above problem. By making either the equality of status conferred on its members, or their
occasional fulfilment of special duties to each other constitutive of citizenship, it provides a
more solid basis for its alleged intrinsic value. Moreover, in the form given by Mason, this
account of citizenship also promises to establish the missing link between claims attributing
intrinsic value to something on the one side, and claims ascribing special duties to someone as
a consequence of something's having intrinsic value, on the other.23 If special obligations of
the citizens to each other are constitutive of citizenship, while at the same time their
fulfilment is part of its (intrinsic) good, then both the recognition and fulfilment of special
duties to compatriots indeed seem inseparable from the recognition of the intrinsic value of
citizenship. How, in the light of all this, could then this "interactional" (as opposed to
"relational") account of citizenship possibly fail in justifying special duties to compatriots?
I find it lacking in at least two respects and will consider each of my worries in turn. First,
let's grant, for the sake of the argument, that the "interactional" account of citizenship has
managed to solve the problem of finding an appropriate ground for intrinsic value of such a
relation. The question is: At what cost? If citizenship is no longer a matter of enjoying certain
legal rights and of being burdened by certain legal obligations as a consequence of specific
circumstances of one's birth or as a result of the administrative decision, but instead consists
of specific kinds of interactions with other citizens (rather than all the residents in a given
territory), then, insofar as it is the intrinsic value of these interactions which grounds special
duties to compatriots, the latter will obtain only among those actively involved in such
interactions. But this is a clear violation of the "all and only" requirement, since nothing in the
very nature of such interactions (in participating in and sustaining one's culture, or sustaining
a language and through it the possibility of beneficial communication for all its speakers, or
21
If I may borrow McMahan's words.
The same kind of move is made, for more or less the same reason, by McMahan in his attempt to
justify special duties of partiality to co-nationals. The objections I raise against such a strategy in the
case of citizenship, if to the point, will also run counter his account.
23
Hurka (1997; 143), by distinguishing the form of an ethically appropriate concern from its content,
convincingly shows that no claims about what people's good consists in can justify the idea that we
ought to care more about some people's good than about others'. Contrary to this insight, however, he
does, only few pages later in the text, try to justify partiality toward one's own nation's impersonal
good by appeal to the obscure fact that "only one culture or nation in the world is mine; all the others
22
14
sustaining, as writers and readers, a literature and an artistic tradition that provide further
benefits, or, by participating in public life, maintaned political institutions and through them
the rule of law, which ensured liberty and security for all citizens) precludes others from
taking part in them and becoming, as a result of this, beneficiaries of special duties. So much
about the "only citizens/nationals" part of the requirement. The same will be true of the "all
citizens/co-nationals" part of it, since not all of those considered citizens on the "legalist"
account will, as a matter of fact, take part in such valuable interactions (nor will their behavior
necessarily display any virtuous character traits).24 Hence this move, however promising at
first look, cannot secure the conclusion which would back up typical patriotic/nationalist
claims (which stem from either legalistic or natural/hereditary conception of belonging). What
it can establish is at best a conditional claim to the effect that were citizenship (nationality)
such and such (were it a matter of participating jointly in valuable interactions), certain
special duties might obtain between citizens (co-nationals). But this solution will certainly
disappoint the classical patriot/nationalist.
Second, there are some good reasons for doubting the very adequacy of an account of
citizenship in terms of constitutive (for the relation of citizenship) special duties to
compatriots. Mason provides, apart from an analogy with friendship (which, on its own, is not
much more plausible either) no compelling reasons for such a move and I doubt that there are
any. Why should one assume that duties of partiality, rather than partiality itself, is
constitutive of citizenship? Such an assumption is even more problematic in the case of
friendship that Mason employs as a model for citizenship, since not providing assistance to a
friend in need (rather than to someone else in need) out of the sense of duty to him/her is
constitutive/characteristic of friendship, but rather the very same kind of act (and a disposition
for it) out of love, inclination and altruistic concern for him/her. Acting out of the sense of
duty toward a friend can only be, as noticed by many authors, disruptive of the relation of
friendship. It is not the fulfilment of special duties of partiality to a friend which makes
(among other things) friendship intrinsically good, but rather the opposite - being a friend
entails, among other things, being specially sensitive or responsive to your friend's needs, and
we owe special duties of partiality to our friends only insofar as we have a duty to form and
are not mine". (ibid.;148)
24
One cannot thereby appeal to limitations imposed by the very existence of national borders, for the
question was precisely whether these may (or even should) preclude the participation of some group of
people in valuable forms of interaction giving rise to special obligations among participants.
15
sustain intrinsically valuable relations (of which friendship is one of the most paradigmatic).
Different intrinsically valuable relations might have different bases of intrinsic goodness (i.e.
be good in virtue of different good-making properties). That's why there is not much prospect
in trying to identify one single common basis of the intrinsic goodness of all special relations.
The same will probably be true of the attempts to provide one single, unifying justification for
partiality towards those standing in special relations to oneself. These relations are simply too
diverse in their nature to allow for such a unitary account; they display considerable
differences in the degree of intimacy, closeness, intensity of emotional involvement, typical
feelings displayed, types of interaction and their purpose, and the like. Hence one cannot draw
any direct conclusions about the permissibility or even obligatoriness of patriotic or
nationalist partiality on the basis of, say, findings concerning the nature and/or value of
parenthood or friendship. Each kind of relation asks for specific justificatory account of
partiality within the constraints outlined by the two modest requirements mentioned above.
Some such accounts will be, in virtue of the respective relations sharing more or less the same
basis of intrinsic value, practically exchangeable, others with more specific basis of intrinsic
value won't, while still others will turn out to lack any basis of intrinsic value altogether. For
example, partnership and friendship which share roughly the same ground for intrinsic value
(common history, close emotional ties, benevolence, altruistic motives, love for the other for
certain valued character traits of his/her,...), will allow for roughly the same justification for
partiality, whereas friendship and citizenship which display few, if any, common
characteristics will require quite different justifications for it.
Let me summarise. In the paper I was trying to show that the defender of NP cannot, in the
end, escape the horns of the following dilemma: in order to establish that the relation of
citizenship or co-nationality is intrinsically (rather than just contributory or instrumentally)
valuable, (s)he must give this relation enough content, that is (s)he must define it in terms of
valuable forms of interaction that are constitutive or characteristic of it. But then not all and
only fellow citizens (co-nationals) will be beneficiaries of our special duties, since not all of
the citizens take part in such interactions and many non-citizens (most often other residents in
a given territory) do. Or else she must define the relation of citizenship or co-nationality in
very thin terms (as not much more than being subject to the laws of certain state, or
possessing a passport, or speaking a language, or being an offspring of a member in a nation,
16
or believing in the common ancestry or origin, - this last is obviously too strong for it
excludes those who do not believe in national myths...) in order to capture all and only
members in a certain country or nation, in which case, however, such a stripped off relation
will be incapable of grounding any intrinsic value. Thus the two horns of dilemma that those
trying to defend NP by appeal to the intrinsic value of citizenship/nationality face are: either
they define citizenship/nationality in terms of close and/or valuable interactions (with the
further implication that not all and only citizens or nationals are beneficiaries of special duties
since neither all of them nor only they take part in it - in which case the relation of
citizenship/nationality will be unable to give rise to special duties to compatriots or conationals rather than those to participants in such interactions - which will often include
residents in a territory); or they define membership in a country/nation in terms of birth,
blood, ancestry, language, shared history of, or liability to law, in which case they will lack
any grounding for the putative value of such membership. Admittedly, the objection I raised
is far from being a conclusive argument against the attempts to ground the demanding
patriotic/nationalist partialism in the intrinsic value of citizenship/nationality. However, their
manifested inability (in principle?) to meet both the "all-and-only" demand and the "groundfor-value" requirement must still be considered a most serious defect of such justificatory
accounts, one suggesting that we better give up this line of thought altogether and look for
another, more promising justification instead.
17
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